Leo Roth: Marv Levy says football's 'sack' was coined by team effort

The recent passing of the great Deacon Jones has sparked conversation about that most revered, if not overrated, statistic in football when it comes to defensive players: the quarterback sack.

Fans cheer lustily and teams spend wildly (Buffalo Bills, Mario Williams, hello) for players that can haul down quarterbacks, preventing passes for first downs and touchdowns. Sacks can, but often don't, directly affect the outcome of a game, but we sure love talking about them.

Jones, who played from 1961 to 1974 for the Rams, Chargers and Redskins, revolutionized the defensive end position with techniques like the head slap (since outlawed) and the ability to pursue sideline to sideline.

He's also widely credited with coining the very term "sack'' but this not all football historians agree with.

During Bruce Smith's reign of terror on opposing quarterbacks for the Bills, coach Marv Levy relayed a story regarding the genesis of the term sack to myself and other beat writers that I recalled vividly while reading the many tributes to Jones, who was 74.

Levy, an assistant coach for the Washington Redskins from 1971-72, believes strongly that it was coach George Allen that first used the term in speech, which eventually was picked up by Jones, whom Allen had coached in Los Angeles.

I reached Marv this week at his Chicago home and he eagerly retold the story.

"I know exactly how the term was coined,'' said Marv, 84, and doing well. "George was talking the night before in the team meeting about playing the Dallas Cowboys and their quarterback, Craig Morton. The term had never been used. It was always 'Tackle the QB for a loss.' But the night before the game, George goes, 'Before we play those Dallas Cowboys, we're going to take that Morton salt and pour him into a sack.' That was the inspiration for it.''

Levy worked the 1970 season for the Rams as Allen's special teams coach (Levy and Dick Vermiel were the first such specialized coaches in pro football) and he can't recall Deacon Jones ever using the term sack. So how is it that Jones gets the credit?

"Deacon did jump on the term 'sack' and he steered it toward meaning tackling the quarterback for a loss,'' Levy said. "George Allen was reaching for a way to say it and Deacon turned it into the iconic term it is today.''

Indeed, in post-career interviews Jones often painted imagery of his art of putting quarterbacks into burlap bags and "sacking them'' up, just as Allen wanted it done. Let's agree to agree that this was collaboration by two NFL legends.

One thing history is clear about: Deacon Jones was a special player and person who will be dearly missed. Somebody commissioner Roger Goodell so aptly tagged, "An icon among icons.''

"I had one year with Deacon and I remember him very well and very fondly,'' Levy said. "He was a character of all characters, very personable and warm and as we all now, quite the football player.''

Sacks didn't become an official NFL statistic until 1982, eight seasons after Jones retired. Teams had tracked the times passers lost yardage and through painstaking research, historians have attempted to put a number on Deacon's career total, 194.5 according to Pro Football Weekly, a much-respected publication that sadly was sacked itself earlier this month.

That would put Deacon Jones behind only Smith (200) and Reggie White (198) all-time but he's still arguably the best ever. In 1967 Jones, a member of the Rams' famed "Fearsome Foursome,'' had an estimated 26 sacks and in 1968 he had 24 — in just 14 games.

Levy is often asked to compare Jones and Smith.

"Both had upbeat personalities and they loved to step on the field,'' Marv said. "They were outgoing guys who entertained their teammates, good family guys, and both were really some kind of football player.''